


yours is mine

by infernal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Body, Stargazing, Xingese Folklore and History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-14 00:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20182927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infernal/pseuds/infernal
Summary: It was strange, sometimes, to have been so many people.





	yours is mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TereziMakara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TereziMakara/gifts).

It was strange, sometimes, to have been so many people. The souls inside his philosopher's stone never clamored for attention -- if they ever had, it was during a lifetime ago that he didn't remember, aside from the occasional, uncomfortable flash of memory. Sometimes, though, they left him feeling tense, restless, and a little bit brittle. 

There was his host, too, and that particular soul was louder, demanding, just plain _annoying_ sometimes. He should have been absorbed by now, another barely-there presence to exist quietly along with the echoes of the souls in the stone, but the brat insisted on making his presence known at the most inconvenient opportunities.

Greed could feel his presence now, and he huffed with annoyance, rolling onto his back and staring up at the night sky. Couldn't the pest just accept that his soul was Greed's, like the rest of the souls he'd absorbed? The whole world belonged to him, after all. _And those too_, he mused, tracing constellations with his eyes. If the world was his, why not the stars? 

When he'd first taken over this body, Ling's presence had felt like a throbbing ache in his head, focused on one point. While it had eventually stopped hurting, it had also spread, curling through him like a second nervous system, finding purchase and taking root. Now, when he heard Ling's voice, it didn't come from one place in particular; it was more like he was aware of the words as they form, his tone coming across through feeling rather than inflection.

Right now, that tone was amused as Greed looked out at the sky and surveyed his would-be kingdom. "You don't think small, do you? You don't have anything of your own yet, and here you are, looking for more."

It was bait, and Greed didn't rise to it, instead giving a lazy handwave that Ling probably couldn't see, but almost certainly felt. "Everything is mine. It just doesn't know it yet, but I've got time."

"Do you?" Ling asked, and his amusement turned into something sharper, barbed; even if his recollection was dim, there were old hurts from his last life that hadn't yet scabbed over, and Ling was a master at tearing them open again. "Because it certainly seems like that family of yours is doing everything they can to make sure _no one_ has time." 

His words rang true and sour, and Greed sighed, tuning out of the conversation to look at the stars again. His stars.

His eyes lingered on one patch of sky, and he felt Ling's presence again, calmer this time, almost soothing. "I always liked that one," Ling said.

His eyes flicked back and he could feel the shake of Ling's head. "No, here, move over," he said, and Greed felt Ling's presence pushing against his, trying to take possession. It wasn't the violent tug-of-war it could be, but more like they were lying next to one another and Greed was getting shoved gently over to his side of the bed. 

Any other day he might have been annoyed at Ling's audacity, but where Greed's own mood felt sharp, Ling's felt -- not soft, exactly, but solid. And while there was always risk involved in letting a host spend too much time in control, there was no doubt Greed was strong enough to push Ling aside again if he wanted to. So he let himself slide back, and it felt like an instant relief, like shrugging off a burden, to let Ling pilot their body. 

He waited to see what Ling would do, but the body stayed where it was, Ling merely lifting a hand to point back at the mansion of sky Greed had been so captured by. He fixed their combined gaze onto one especially bright star. "That one," he said. 

"You could have just said 'the brightest one,'" Greed said, but there was no heat to his grumbling, the tension already seeping out of him as he let himself rest. 

"Do you know the story about it?" 

Greed squinted. "I never paid much attention to the constellations." 

"This one has more to do with history than with astronomy or astrology. In Xing, that star is called the Shadow Emperor, after a prince who lived a few hundred years ago. Do you want to hear the story?" 

It was a trick question to ask Greed if he wanted something. "Yeah, sure." 

"The prince was third in line for the throne, but he didn't want to compete for it. He was an astronomer, and he hated that the constant fighting for the throne took so much of his time and attention away from his studies. One day he was delivering a lecture and it was interrupted by an assassination attempt against him, and he was so frustrated he decided to formally rescind his claim to the throne." 

"I like him," Greed said.

"Even though he wasn't ambitious?"

"He was plenty ambitious," Greed argued. "He knew what he wanted, and he went for it. So, how did he end up getting a star named after him? And why was he called the Shadow Emperor anyway?" 

"Patience," Ling said, amused again. Greed could pull the story from Ling's memory if he wanted to, but it was enjoyable to hear it, so he waited for Ling to finish. "No one actually believed that he was rescinding his claim. A few people have abdicated since then, but it hadn't been done before, so everyone thought it was part of a plot, that he was trying to make everyone think he was no longer a player in the game, and then he would strike when least expected." 

Greed laughed, delighted. "Holy shit. Poor guy." 

"The emperor believed him, though, because he knew his son had always had a scholar's mind and cared about nothing else. So word began to spread that the emperor had fallen for the prince's scheme, and the prince began to gain a loyal following. They called him the Shadow Emperor because he commanded such a large force. Or, at least, he would have, if he'd ever bothered." 

"What happened to him?" 

"He ignored everything and kept focusing on his work. He revolutionized the field of astronomy, despite facing more assassination plots than ever before."

"Did they get him?"

Ling shook his head. "He outlived the emperor, and the next two after him. He died of old age, and that very same night astronomers noticed a new, bright star in the sky. Legend says that the Shadow Emperor loved the stars so much he became one himself." 

"Huh," Greed said. "Good story, kid." His earlier tension was all but gone, and he felt like he was -- not quite about to fall asleep, because he couldn't sleep like this, not with his consciousness receded into Ling's. But he felt like he was floating, relaxed and drifting. 

"You can rest," Ling said. "I'll keep watch."

"Nah," Greed said, and felt Ling obligingly start to cede control back to him. "No, I meant -- you can sleep, if you want. I'll know if anything's wrong." 

Ling stretched, getting comfortable in his own skin again, and laced his fingers above his head. Greed felt the sensation echoed in his own palms; he did his best not to think about it, because it felt like following that thread would lead to him wanting something he couldn't possibly have, and that was just unacceptable.

So he didn't think about it, but the attention he gave to _not_ thinking about it meant that Ling caught the sentiment. He pressed his -- their -- palms together, squeezing once before relaxing them. Greed felt the phantom touch in his own hands, and let himself drift.


End file.
